Elizabeth Gray Vining letters

Elizabeth Gray Vining (1902-1999) was born in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Her parents were John Gray and Anne Moore Gray. She attended Germantown Friends School and Bryn Mawr College (class of 1923). During her early adult years, Vining worked as a librarian, earning her degree from the Library School of Drexel Institute in 1926. She met her husband, Morgan Fisher Vining, during her time working in the library of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. After her husband’s death in 1933, Vining returned to Germantown and was brought back in touch with her Quaker roots. She joined Germantown Meeting in 1934. She wrote 11 books, including a Newberry Award winning children’s book entitled Adam of the Road (1942). Vining also worked for the American Friends Service Committee in 1946 as a tutor for Akihito, the crown prince (and later emperor) of Japan. Her later writing reflected a strong interest in Japanese culture as well as her close relationship with the Japanese royal family. Some of her popular books include: Windows for the Crown Prince (1952), Return to Japan (1960), The Virginia Exiles (1955), Friend of Life: A Biography of Rufus M. Jones (1958), and Being Seventy: The Measure of a Year.

Information courtesy of the Friends Journal 46 March 2000 page 40.